1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface treating device formed by assembling a small number of members having simple configuration, that can be used as a lustering-agent applicator used for lustering car bodies and tires, furniture, etc. as well as a sweeper, a cleaner, an eraser for a blackboard etc., a squeegee for glass etc. or other such device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A great number of brushes or applicators having a grip to be held by a user have heretofore been proposed. Their major structural feature is that a material such as fur or felt is adhered to a holder portion of the grip by means of an adhesive agent. The brushes or applicators cannot be used until the adhesive agent sets, because the material easily falls out of the holder portion before the adhesive agent sets. Therefore, a step of setting the adhesive agent (allowing it to stand) is required. In addition, the adhesive agent contains an organic solvent that is flammable and harmful to the human body. Therefore, it is necessary to install an exhausting unit and pay strict attention to fire prevention. For these reasons, the productivity thereof is not good.
Various structures using no adhesive agent also have heretofore been proposed. One example is as shown in FIG. 7 in which one end of felt 6 is clamped between a holder portion at the distal end of a grip 7 and a presser plate 8 by means of rivets 9. With this structure, however, it is necessary to form a plurality of through holes for the rivets 9 in the holder portion and presser plate 8, make the grip 7 and presser plate 8 from a hard material and subject the ends of the rivets 9 to welding. Another example is disclosed in JP-A 11-42193, wherein a wiper cloth is clamped between two members openably connected via a hinge by applying the wiper cloth to the open members and closing the members together. Since this structure is very complicated, the productivity thereof is not good.
Thus, in the brushes or applicators not using adhesive agent, since the component parts have complicated shapes and the assembling work requires special treatments, the productivity thereof is not good. Moreover, the production cost is too high for use of the brushes or applicators as disposable ones.
On the other hand, the work for lustering car bodies or tires or preventing water drops from adhering to windshields is to coat a treating agent onto a surface to be treated. A car owner has to assemble a set of materials including an applicator such as a spongy member, a treating agent, a container for the treating agent and disposable gloves for carrying out this work. This set is bulky and takes up a large space. If always kept in a car trunk, it is likely to be a nuisance, especially if not frequently.
In recent years, water-drop-adherence preventing devices to solve such a problem have been commercially available. These have a structure such that a cap for a container filled with a treating agent is provided inside with a web member. However, After several uses of such devices, contaminants accumulating in the web member nix with the treating agent, resulting in adherence of stains to windshields coated with the treating agent using the web member.
In view of the above, the present invention has an object to provide a surface treating device that can be fabricated with ease using a small number of members of simple structure and used as a disposable one.
To attain this object, the present invention provides a surface treating device comprising a material of sponge or brush fur that constitutes a treating portion, a plastic holder having a fitting groove, and a pair of plastic plates having inside clamping structures, wherein the pair of plastic plates with one end of the material clamped between the inside clamping structures thereof are forced into and fixed in the fitting groove of the plastic holder.
In this surface treating device, the plastic holder may have a material-fixing portion in which the fitting groove is formed and around which a removable flange extends, and a cover member that comprises a bulged portion for covering the treating portion and a fitting flange joined to the removable flange. The cover member serves to prevent the volatilization and outflow of a liquid occluded in the material in the storage state of the device and, in use of the device, can be removed together with the removable flange by breaking off the removable flange. Therefore, this surface treating device is very practicable.
As described above, the surface treating device according to the present invention comprises a material constituting a treating portion, a pair of plastic plates and a plastic holder. Since these component members each have a simple structure, the productivity thereof is very high. Furthermore, since these component members can be assembled with ease into a surface treating device without use of adhesive agent or execution of welding treatment, the device productivity is also very practicable.
While easy-to-peel adhesive has been adopted between the cup and the cover for various liquid-phase foods, no such adhesive is used in the wet-type surface treating device according to the present invention, that has a liquid occluded in the material constituting the treating portion. High productivity can therefore be attained. The easy-to-peel adhesive used in food containers is required to have both sealability to prevent bleeding of the contained liquid-phase food and an easy-to-peel property of the cover relative to the cup. These two properties are difficult to balance. If one is enhanced, the other tends to degrade. On the other hand, in the present invention, the sealability between the fitting flange and the removable flange is high because the two flanges are joined together, and the cover member can be easily removed by breaking off the removable flange, with the joined section left intact.